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ABOUT FILMOGRAPHICS

This project is driven by a curiosity to explore the shape of success across the careers of different movie stars. It displays visual analysis about the ebb and flow of the fortunes for a selection of 60 prominent movie actors and directors. Filmographics has been primarily developed to showcase some of the techniques described in the new book written by Andy Kirk, ‘Data Visualisation: A Handbook for Data Driven Design’. To accompany the book and this project, you can find a detailed account of the design process by visiting book.visualisingdata.com and working through the ‘case study’ contents for Chapters 2 through to 10. This provides a behind-the-scenes narrative of all the ideas, challenges and choices made during the creation of this work.

READING AND USER GUIDE

Selecting one of the 6 major category ‘tickets’ will bring up a group of 10 actors or directors. Click on (desktop) or tap (mobile) an individual’s image to bring up a profile of their career in the movies.

MAIN CHART (Desktop only)
Using the toggle, you can choose to view movies by the year of a movie being released or by the age of the chosen star at the time of the movie’s release.

Each circle represents a movie starring or directed by the selected star. The horizontal x-axis position of a circle represents the associated year or age value. The vertical y-axis position of a circle is based on a movie’s average critic rating (0-10, with 10 being the best).The size of each circle is determined by the worldwide gross takings (adjusted for inflation).

When you hover over a movie circle, further details are provided in an annotated box underneath the actor’s or director’s illustration on the left. The gold stars on each illustration indicate the number of Oscar awards, the grey stars are the number of non-victorious Oscar nominations.

SUPPLEMENTARY CHARTS
These charts display summary analysis of the selected actor’s or director’s movie career. The first chart presents the movies broken down by the decade grouping of release year or age range (depending on toggle selection). The second chart provides a profile of the movies’ gross takings (adjusted). The colour associations are the same as in the main chart. In the desktop view, when you hover over a movie circle, the associated record in the supplementary charts are highlighted through a darker colour ‘stack’.

DATA SOURCES AND TREATMENT

The actor and director filmographies are from the Rotten Tomatoes website. This includes movie ratings, details and poster images. All finance data comes from The Numbers website.

The selection of actors and directors is hand-picked, based on an informed but personal choice of prominent and interesting stars across different generations and genres. The 60 individuals are organised across 6 categorical groupings, based largely on a sense of when they rose to fame or the era in which they are most commonly associated. Other than the ‘Assorted’ group, each category consists of five male and five female actors.

To be included in the analysis, a movie must be considered a theatrical release (as opposed to, for example, straight-to-video) and the actor must have a specific acting or character-voiceover credit, with directors having directing credits (producer, writer or other behind the camera credits not included). The cut-off point for a movie release to be included is 31st December 2015.

You can find much more detailed information about the data gathering, treatment and analysis by visiting the case-study account for Chapter 4.

Info

ABOUT FILMOGRAPHICS

This project is driven by a curiosity to explore the shape of success across the careers of different movie stars. It displays visual analysis about the ebb and flow of the fortunes for a selection of 60 prominent movie actors and directors. Filmographics has been primarily developed to showcase some of the techniques described in the new book written by Andy Kirk, ‘Data Visualisation: A Handbook for Data Driven Design’. To accompany the book and this project, you can find a detailed account of the design process by visiting book.visualisingdata.com and working through the ‘case study’ contents for Chapters 2 through to 10. This provides a behind-the-scenes narrative of all the ideas, challenges and choices made during the creation of this work.

READING AND USER GUIDE

Selecting one of the 6 major category ‘tickets’ will bring up a group of 10 actors or directors. Click on (desktop) or tap (mobile) an individual’s image to bring up a profile of their career in the movies.

MAIN CHART (Desktop only)
Using the toggle, you can choose to view movies by the year of a movie being released or by the age of the chosen star at the time of the movie’s release.

Each circle represents a movie starring or directed by the selected star. The horizontal x-axis position of a circle represents the associated year or age value. The vertical y-axis position of a circle is based on a movie’s average critic rating (0-10, with 10 being the best). The size of each circle is determined by the worldwide gross takings (adjusted for inflation).

When you hover over a movie circle, further details are provided in an annotated box underneath the actor’s or director’s illustration on the left. The gold stars on each illustration indicate the number of Oscar awards, the grey stars are the number of non-victorious Oscar nominations.

SUPPLEMENTARY CHARTS
These charts display summary analysis of the selected actor’s or director’s movie career. The first chart presents the movies broken down by the decade grouping of release year or age range (depending on toggle selection). The second chart provides a profile of the movies’ gross takings (adjusted). The colour associations are the same as in the main chart. In the desktop view, when you hover over a movie circle, the associated record in the supplementary charts are highlighted through a darker colour ‘stack’.

DATA SOURCES AND TREATMENT
The actor and director filmographies are from the Rotten Tomatoes website. This includes movie ratings, details and poster images. All finance data comes from The Numbers website.

The selection of actors and directors is hand-picked, based on an informed but personal choice of prominent and interesting stars across different generations and genres. The 60 individuals are organised across 6 categorical groupings, based largely on a sense of when they rose to fame or the era in which they are most commonly associated. Other than the ‘Assorted’ group, each category consists of five male and five female actors.

To be included in the analysis, a movie must be considered a theatrical release (as opposed to, for example, straight-to-video) and the actor must have a specific acting or character-voiceover credit, with directors having directing credits (producer, writer or other behind the camera credits not included). The cut-off point for a movie release to be included is 31st December 2015.

You can find much more detailed information about the data gathering, treatment and analysis by visiting the case-study account for Chapter 4.